Changeling
by SAMarcus
Summary: An idea I am playing with inspired by Frederik Pohl's World at the End of Time. One of serveral plot bunnies I have running rampant through my head.


The other was confused by what it saw. It had always been curious about the beings it occasionally encountered, the ones that bound themselves to the slow vibrating patterns. The other had no name, nor did it know the concept. Time was also something alien to it. It simply, was.

These other beings it looked at, they were many and so confusing. Why did they mix frequencies with the slow vibrating patterns? Why did they so inefficiently throw parts of themselves about? What was the purpose of the various energies and vibrations they changed? They were curious things that spent a large amount of existence bound to slow vibrating patterns and then changed themselves into higher vibrating patterns that never stayed around long. Usually.

Sometimes, a piece of the pattern would copy itself and, while still of a slower vibrating frequency, it would still be higher than the bound ones. Not once did either form ever acknowledge the other. If it was capable of being concerned, it might wonder about that.

This moment, the other found itself observing a rather large and discordant exchange of energies. The slow vibrating ones were again throwing large portions of their selves around in a wild display. If the other had a sex, it might consider the possibility of a mating ritual. If the other knew anything of war, it might think of the violence involved. The other was alone as far as it was aware, having never met another like itself, so these concepts were also unknown. Not just undefined, but completely alien to it.

As it drifted on the ethers being stirred by several of the slow vibrating ones, numbers being another foreign concept, the other found itself near a smaller collective of energies. The slow vibrating ones often bound themselves to miniscule patterns that changed and grew in size before being dispersed. This was the closest idea to 'time' that the other understood. Hours, days, months, millennia were all the same to the other. It did not have memory as some might understand it, so the marking of periods of existence was not something it did.

Slowing itself and using the gravitons and mions of null-space to hold position in the fraction of space near the small bundle of high frequency energies bound to the small slow vibrating pattern, the other felt a connection. Unused to any kind of contact from the slow vibrating ones, the other became very curious.

Before the other could do more than take notice, a pair of the other previous slow vibrating beings entered the near-space of the other. The only reason the other even deigned to consider them as separate entities was the oddities of one of the slow vibrating beings. Both were throwing pieces of themselves about in a brilliant and oddly disturbing display of abandon. A new concept was slowly being introduced to the other. It was not sure how to define this new, well, feeling for lack of better term.

Observing the one slow vibrating being caused the other to want to leave. It was not curious about the being, nor confused as it usually was. No, this being made the other just want to alter its immediate space to somewhere else.

The being in question was oddly unique of all the slow vibrating entities the other had observed. At least, activating the patterns of identification it had caused no match for types of energy it had previously observed in any part of its existence. The being was… incomplete. The confusion of the other would have been palpable if the slow vibrating beings could have been aware of the observer. The other could not fathom what it was seeing, but something about this slow vibrating being seemed to be even more foreign than the others. Jagged parts of the pattern stuck out at odd angles. Pieces of the pattern flowed like the other being only to end in sharp ends and… ripped sections.

Other slow vibrating beings had confused and mystified the other, but none of them it had encountered had ever seemed to not belong. This one was new in that it did not seem to be part of the natural flow of energy the other normally encountered.

Without any warning, a piece of the… torn, slow vibrating being was flung with great force at the other slow vibrating being and the second one suddenly began to disperse, its energies disrupted and patterns broken. The other was used to seeing similar effects and thought nothing of the being that was rapidly altering its vibrational frequency to something higher than what the other could perceive.

While this happened, another piece of energy suddenly tore into the other.

Pain.

Pain was a never before encountered experience. The other had always existed in a space-relevance different from the slow vibrating pattern beings. Nothing they had ever done before had ever intersected its own vibrational intersections. Never before had the other had to deal with an attack on its own pattern.

Pain. Disruption. Attempted forceful dissolution.

The other understood itself. It understood instinctively that something was attempting to remove and destroy the pairings and patterns of high energy bonds that formed its existence. Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs splintered. Gravitational vibrations were disrupted. Mesons and bosons flared into novae of infinitesimal size.

The other fought back against the energies attempting to dissolve it. Where gravitons were stripped, it increased the vibrational mass of still bonded strings. When a quark was destroyed, it split cosmic null space into zero points. After an infinity of destruction, the other found the correct path of energy that needed to be dispersed to neutralize the attack. It dived into the matrix of coalesced patterns that were attempting dispersal and ripped their velocity into a new directive. Shifting minute gravity effects, the energies were redirected to almost non-existent points of infinity.

The effect was beyond description.

When the points of infinity attempted to absorb the energy patterns, they reacted. With a level of violence usually associated with the energy dispersal of a super-nova, the energies, instead of dispersing, were inverted and directed outward in a cone of force that included the slow vibrating being that had launched the attack. The being was torn into numerous pieces.

Instead of dispersing or altering its vibrational frequency, however, the slow vibrating being changed only slightly. The larger piece of its pattern immediately fled to space-relevance near the other. Several smaller pieces of the pattern encountered other slow vibrating energy patterns and were viciously shredded into dissolution. A single smaller part drifted towards the remaining slow vibrating being in the space-relevance. It made contact with a section of the remaining slow vibrating being's pattern and seemed to merge with it on some level.

The attack was over, the disruptive energy disbursed.

Too little, too late.

The other felt itself dissolving. Pieces of itself were struggling to remain whole while other parts were giving up and separating back into their component structures. A new experience for the other but not one it wished to continue. Dissolution was not acceptable. It was undesired. What to do?

Having observed the one slow vibrating being's remnant merging with the smaller slow vibrating being, the other struck upon a possible solution. Perhaps slowing itself down to the lower frequencies would give it to necessary energy and time to repair its pattern. It had never done this before, but the method came to it as easily as moving across null space. A brief idea intruded. Perhaps that is what the slow vibrating beings were? Beings like itself that had been damaged somehow and needed the safety of low frequency existence to survive? Something to consider later.

For now, the other drew in all the remaining parts of itself that had stayed intact. In doing so, it felt weaker bonded portions slip away. A sensation of suddenly being less than it was overcame the other. Pushing aside this new 'feeling,' the other concentrated on slowing its vibrations, quelling the high order energies that normally formed its existence into the low frequency patterns in had observed.

Coming into contact with the small slow vibrating patter, the other gently slid itself into its pattern, merging into the low frequency being with grace and purpose. Almost immediately it encountered the remnants of the torn being trying to change to small slow vibrating being into a copy of its own pattern.

Sensing somehow that this was similar to what had occurred against itself, the other immediately lent itself to the slow vibrating being's assistance and together they pushed back the remnant. They could not defeat it, both being weak, the other by virtue of its recent change, the slow vibrating being apparently only recently being formed and not having a large reserve of strength. Together they did manage to cage the remnant, forcing it into a small corner of their shared existence.

The other felt weak, tired. Even with everything it had done, it was not going to survive. It didn't know how or why it knew that with such certainty, but it did.

The other felt a touch.

The slow vibrating being had altered itself! It was trying to communicate!

Untold millennia had passed without the other having ever succeeded in making contact with the slow vibrating beings on any of the infrequent occasions it had tried. But here was one of them making the first effort!

Thoughts, words, concepts did not really translate for either being. But something akin to emotion did. Acceptance, welcome.

A shift in their mutual pattern and the other found a whole new existence shared. Feelings, sensations, oddities it had no description or concept of exploded across all of the other. Understanding, perception and new realities were shared with the slow vibrating being.

Acceptance, welcome, joy… oneness.

The other opened its… no, the concept came across… his eyes to the sight of the other being it now knew as Padfoot.


End file.
